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The door has been left open for Mohammad Yousuf to return to international cricket by a board that has already provided relief to five of his fellow players it penalised so heavily in the aftermath of a winless tour of Australia. Irfan Qadir, the independent arbitrator hearing the appeals, asked the board to reconsider the ban on Yousuf so that he is “treated at par with the other players in these appeals.” In response, the PCB said it had sent messages out to Yousuf that he should return.On Saturday, Qadir reduced and removed the punishments of Shahid Afridi, the Akmal brothers and Younis Khan. Afridi’s fine was removed altogether, those of the Akmal brothers reduced and the indefinite ban on Younis lifted. Last week the one-year ban on Shoaib Malik had also been lifted and later this month a similar ban on Rana Naved-ul-Hasan is also likely to be removed.That leaves only Yousuf, who like Younis, was banned indefinitely by the PCB and removed from the captaincy of the Test and ODI side. In protest, Yousuf announced his retirement from international cricket. Since then a number of attempts have been made by Afridi and others to lure him back, but the advances have been rebuffed each time.”Yousuf has not appealed, he has retired,” Ijaz Butt, the board chairman told Cricinfo. “We have sent messages to him through others that if he takes back his retirement he can play for Pakistan again. But he declined that.”Yousuf’s intentions are not entirely clear. Though he has ruled out playing this summer in Pakistan’s tour to England, he has indicated he may be involved in the series against South Africa in the Middle East later this year. It is thought he is undecided about playing under this administration again. On Pakistan’s last tour to England, Yousuf scored nearly twice as many runs in four Tests – 631 – as the second-leading run-scorer, with three hundreds at an average of 90.14.”If he takes back his retirement he will be welcomed back into the side,” Butt said. “He is a great player and has a few more years in him. He has done so well for us and particularly on the last tour of England he was outstanding, so we would definitely be welcomed back.”

Brendon McCullum has said he will take a decision on his playing role with the New Zealand team over the next few months, as he looks to preserve himself for all three formats of the game. McCullum, one of the country’s best-ever wicketkeepers, gave up the gloves during the recent ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies and played as a specialist batsman.McCullum first contemplated giving up keeping in limited-overs games back in March, deciding to focus on being a top-order batsman. New Zealand are currently in the USA for two Twenty20s against Sri Lanka and their next major tour is in August when they play a tri-series in Sri Lanka, also involving India. He will skip that tournament to be with his wife for the birth of their child and also get some rest ahead of future tours.”There are a couple of issues in terms of my body, and my back in particular. I don’t want to miss out on playing any games for New Zealand and I have to work out the best way to have longevity in the game,” McCullum told . “That’s something to be decided over the next week in terms of what’s right for the balance of the team and what’s right for my career.”There are three months coming up when I will look at making a decision along with the relevant people at New Zealand Cricket and the selectors.”McCullum has been a destructive opener in limited-overs games. In the last two years, he has scored two centuries and five fifties in one-dayers but his returns in T20s are relatively better, with one century and six fifties. New Zealand’s top order has struggled for consistency, and McCullum intends to focus on adding more stability to it.”The way I see it is that we have a glaringly obvious issue at the top of the order and it would be great to make an impact and try to rectify that,” he said. “If it was to be the case that I wasn’t able to play as a wicketkeeper, it would mean I could spend the required time on my batting.”I know it’d be a challenge. I’m not saying I’d be instantly successful at it but I do enjoy a challenge. I’d be hopeful of being successful.”He also stressed that his commitment to New Zealand is still very strong. “I know my motives are sound, my desire is sound. I have played six years for New Zealand cricket without missing a game now and in terms (of being self serving) I think that’s a little off the mark.”In McCullum’s absence, New Zealand have tried out Peter McGlashan, Reece Young and Gareth Hopkins, who kept during the World Twenty20.

ScorecardMal Loye led Northamptonshire’s recovery with a century•Getty Images

Mal Loye made his first century since returning to Northamptonshire as thehosts’ batsmen put them in charge on the first day of their CountyChampionship Division Two encounter against Surrey at Wantage Road.Loye made his ton off 203 balls on his way to a magnificent 121 not out, as heand former captain Nicky Boje made 161 between them, with Boje making anunbeaten 77 and opener Stephen Peters also claiming a half-century.Surrey had threatened a revival after lunch in reducing Northants to 169 for5, with Championship debutant Tom Jewell taking the scalp of their skipperAndrew Hall. But Loye’s century was the cornerstone as the hosts reached the close on 330for 5.Surrey won the toss but chose to bowl in glorious conditions as they looked fortheir first Championship win in 17 matches. Northants wicketkeeper Niall O’Brien was given an early let-off when he was dropped by his Surrey counterpart Steven Davies off Andre Nel in only the third over.The Ireland international went on to make an explosive 44 off 54 balls beforeTim Linley forced him to edge to Davies, who this time made no mistake, to endan opening stand of 90 with Peters.Peters went on to reach his fifty off 86 balls with a four smashed throughcover off Jade Dernbach as Northants went into lunch on 115 for 1. Linley struck again in the fifth over after the restart when Peters (61) went cheaply by launching him straight to Chris Schofield at extra cover.David Sales went for a duck when he was well and truly bowled by Nel, with allthree of his stumps toppled. Northants were starting to look less assured at the crease and they lost their fourth wicket when Rob White (8) nudged to Davies.Hall made just five before he gave 19-year-old Jewell, playing in just hisfourth first-class game, his first wicket by slashing wildly at his shortdelivery to give Davies an easy catch. Loye then reached his fifty off 114 balls, including a six smashed over square leg off Linley.Boje, who resigned as skipper last week, became the third batsman to go past 50after tea, doing so off 87 balls after being dropped on 29 by Schofield atmid-on.His and Loye’s partnership put Northants back on top as Surrey’s bowlers beganto toil in the sun as they had done in the morning, with Loye making his centurywith a four through square leg off Dernbach. The sixth-wicket pairing then comfortably batted out the rest of the day without alarm.

ScorecardSussex launched the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition with a five-wicket victoryover Worcestershire in a successful return to New Road where they won the oldPro40 League at the end of last season.James Kirtley removed three top-order batsmen in an over as the home sidestruggled to make 144 for 9 and Sussex edged home by five wickets despite asimilar burst by Chris Whelan.The Worcestershire paceman dismissed Matt Prior, Joe Gatting and Murray Goodwinin the space of five balls but the in-form Robin Martin-Jenkins, unbeaten with35, and Andy Hood (16 not out) finished the job with 16.5 overs to spare.New Road revisited actually delivered a better scoreline than last Septemberwhen Sussex lost by 49 runs and had to wait 35 minutes before they were declared40-over champions following Somerset’s defeat by Durham. Two much-changed teams re-convened for the first weekend of county cricket’s newest sponsorship.With Michael Yardy and Luke Wright away with England, preparing for the ICCWorld T20 in the Caribbean, acting captain Goodwin made the right call by givinghis seamers the chance to take control in helpful early-season conditions.It took a brilliant catch by Joe Gatting, low to his left at short mid-wicket,to remove Vikram Solanki in Chad Keegan’s fourth over after Worcestershire’scaptain had hit three fours in a confident start.The real breakthrough for Sussex came with the more contentious of twoleg-before decisions by umpire Mark Benson. Television replays suggested thatPhil Jaques inside edged the ball on to his pad but the Australian was given outfor 22. One wicket for Kirtley led to two more in the next five balls. Alexei Kervezeewas trapped on the crease and Ben Smith carved a catch to Martin-Jenkins atthird man.From this point it was mostly toil for Worcestershire. Moeen Ali reined backafter hitting an early six off Martin-Jenkins and was badly dropped by Keegan atmid-off in batting through 26 overs for 38. Ben Scott, with 22, was the main contributor as the tail scrambled what runs they could against Kirtley, who finished with four for 30, and Rana Naved. The entire innings included only 13 fours and a six.Sussex had 13 boundaries on the board in 14 overs but they were made to pay aprice. Having taken three fours in Jack Shantry’s opening over, Chris Nash (33)eventually nicked the left-arm seamer to slip and Michael Thornely holed out tomid-wicket off the Zimbabwean-born James Cameron.Prior (37) hit two sixes before a loose shot to mid-off set up Whelan’s clutchof wickets, with Goodwin taken at backward point and Gatting at second slip.

Stuart Broad has insisted England’s bowlers were right to skip the IPL to ensure they remain fresh for international duty despite criticism from Kevin Pietersen that it will leave them playing catch-up at the World Twenty20 in West Indies.Although five of England’s squad for the tournament are currently in India -Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan, Michael Lumb and Ravi Bopara – they are all members of the top order while the bowlers have been resting tired or injured limbs after the winter.Broad would have been likely to secure major interest from an IPL franchise but he took the decision to skip the tournament for the second time, with a view to his England commitments in the year ahead, which include the Ashes tour in November. James Anderson could probably have fetched an IPL contract if he so wished but missed the tour of Bangladesh to recover from the knee injury which troubled him in South Africa, while Tim Bresnan wasn’t picked up at auction.”I’ve been back bowling for two sessions and we’ve got warm-up matches [in West Indies] before the Twenty20,” Broad said. “It would obviously have been good to have played a bit more Twenty20 cricket leading into the World Cup, but I thought I needed a bit of a rest and Jimmy had a bit of a niggle. I feel better for having the break ahead of a busy international summer and the winter.”However, Broad still aims to join the IPL at some point in his career, although if he maintains his stance of putting his international role first, it will prove hard to find time. Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has said next year’s tournament will start a few days after the World Cup finishes in April. “It’s certainly something I’ll look to do in the future because to improve as an England side the players will have to play a bit more,” he said.England’s bowlers are being carefully managed at the start of the domestic season with Broad, who lost 4kgs during his Bangladesh exertions, still being rested – along with Graeme Swann – from Nottinghamshire duty, although Anderson is playing for Lancashire against Warwickshire this week before his workload is reassessed.”It’s a bit more hectic on your body as a fast bowler rather than a batsman,” said Broad at the launch of the PCA’s MVP rankings. “I know a lot of batsmen, when they are in form, just like to keep hitting balls, but as a bowler you can’t bowl every day because you’ll break down. There is a balance but we get looked after fantastically by all the medical staff to make sure we stay on the park.”When England’s bowling unit heads out to West Indies they will be under the wing of a new coach after David Saker’s appointment last week. So far the players have admitted not knowing much about him, but Broad hopes to tap into a little local knowledge from his Nottinghamshire (and former England) team-mate Darren Pattinson.”Darren has worked with him at Victoria so I’ll have a word with him,” said Broad, who was yesterday named one of ‘s five Cricketers of the Year. “I assume he’s coming with us to the Twenty20 but I’m not sure. I’m looking forward to working with him, he comes with a really good reputation and some people have some fine words to say about him.”Broad’s form and fitness will be key for England at the World Twenty20 as they aim to end their drought at global events. They remain the only one of the eight long-term international nations not to have won a trophy and Broad knows that needs to change.”It’s something we have talked about and we need to get on the board,” he said. “That can start in the next couple of weeks, but we aren’t going to put extra pressure on ourselves by thinking we haven’t won these sorts of tournaments before. If we can get a good start and carry the momentum through it’s a short tournament and you can go all the way.”

Mashrafe Mortaza, the most successful fast bowler in Bangladesh’s Test history, believes that he too may be forced to follow the route chosen by the likes of Andrew Flintoff, Brett Lee and Shane Bond, and retire from Test cricket in order to preserve his injury-ravaged body for the shorter forms of the game.After eight months on the sidelines, Mortaza has been named in a 13-man squad for the three one-dayers that get underway at Mirpur on Sunday, but he has already ruled himself out of contention for next month’s Test series against England. He returned to competitive action for a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI in Fatullah on Thursday, his first appearance in national colours since breaking down during the tour of West Indies in July.”It would be very hard to come back straightaway into Test cricket,” Mortaza told Cricinfo. “It will take some time, and you can’t make a decision on Test cricket just from playing in three one-dayers. In Test cricket you have to bowl 20-25 overs a day, and you have to be 100% at all times. It’s always difficult and against England massively so. You first have to play some proper cricket, and I’ll only be back when I feel good.”Mortaza, 26, has claimed 78 wickets in 36 Tests since 2001, and is second on Bangladesh’s list of wicket-takers, behind the spinner Mohammad Rafique. He was one of his country’s stand-out players on England’s last tour in 2003, claiming four wickets in consecutive innings at Dhaka and Chittagong, but it was during the last rites of the series that he suffered one of the many knee injuries that has plagued his career ever since.In total, Mortaza has undergone six knee reconstructions in the space of eight years, but his latest return to fitness followed arguably the most demoralising setback yet. In July 2009, he was handed the captaincy for Bangladesh’s tour of the Caribbean to allow Mohammad Ashraful to concentrate on his batting. But he was able to bowl just 6.3 overs of their famous Test victory at Kingstown, his first match in charge, before collapsing in his followthrough on the second day of the game.”It was tough when I got injured in that first Test,” said Mortaza. “It was a very difficult moment for me to survive out there, but straightway afterwards I flew to Australia to have the situation explained by my doctor. It would have been a great honour to have led the side to victory, but you can’t do anything when you get injured and the first priority has always been the team.”To that end, Mortaza has no interest in reclaiming the captaincy, especially given the manner in which Shakib has been leading from the front. “I’d like to give this opportunity to Shakib because he’s doing well so far, and I’d like to play in his team,” said Mortaza. “But also, I’m not playing both forms of cricket right now – I’m only looking to one-day cricket – and if I don’t do both, then the captaincy and the relationship with the team is difficult.”Nevertheless, there’s no denying Mortaza’s enduring popularity. In an otherwise low-key contest at Fatullah, his reappearance was the highlight for an enthusiastic crowd, who reserved the loudest cheer of the day for the moment he walked out to bat with the BCB XI floundering on 76 for 6 in the 20th over. He soon departed for a third-ball duck, but he showed enough glimpses of form in his eight subsequent overs with the ball to suggest he’s on the right track.”To make a comeback after so long against international players is hard, but I felt good today,” said Mortaza. “England are a very good team right now. They were playing good cricket in South Africa and against West Indies in England, and this is a great opportunity for me after injury to come back and play cricket. My pace is not yet at 100%, but my line and length is still there, so I was happy. I think I can get better than this, and hopefully I will.”The selectors saw enough in his performance at Fatullah to recall him to the one-day squad, even though his most recent limited-overs appearances came against Zimbabwe back in January 2009. He was given the all-clear on a recent visit to Melbourne by his surgeon, Dr David Young, following a double knee operation back in July, but his progress will have to be monitored carefully in a series as prominent as an England campaign.But there is no realistic prospect of Mortaza appearing in the two Tests at Chittagong and Dhaka, and in the long-term, it could well be that his final five-day match was the one that got away from him at Kingstown. “I am not going to make a decision exactly now, but my only choice is to play one-day cricket and see how it’s going,” he said. “If everything is alright then I’ll be back in Tests. But if not, I’ll have to make a different decision.”

Shane Watson is the favourite among his team-mates for the Allan Border Medal after a spectacular home summer. Watson didn’t join the Test side until the middle of the Ashes series, but it hasn’t stopped Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey from tipping him for Australia’s prestigious prize at tonight’s ceremony in Melbourne.Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson, who would become the third bowler to win in the 11 years of the award, are the other major contenders. “If you read the paper Watto can’t be beaten and is a $1.30 favourite,” Ponting, who shared the honour with Clarke last year, said. “I thought it would be Watto, Pup or Mitch.”Watson has been strong since his return to the Test team in Edgbaston and has also contributed heavily in the one-day team, while Clarke has been consistent and Johnson has had patches of brilliance sprinkled with deep troughs. “For me, Shane Watson is the favourite,” Hussey said. “He’s only played half the games, but I think in those games he’s probably polled very well.”Mitchell Johnson has been outstanding really, I think he’ll vote consistently through the whole course of the year, but having said that there’s only been two fast bowlers [Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath] that have won the award, I don’t know whether that’s a trend. Michael Clarke, his Test form over the course of the year has been fantastic and will probably poll well, and I’m sure he’ll pick up votes in the one-dayers as well. So he might be the one to come in and sweep past both them.”

ScorecardEllyse Perry ran through New Zealand with 5 for 31•Getty Images

Leah Poulton’s unbeaten century built on the five-wicket haul of Ellyse Perry as Australia took a 4-0 lead over New Zealand to retain the Rose Bowl trophy. New Zealand’s batsmen were again unable to deal with their opponents as they battled to 162 in 48.3 overs and Australia finished the match without losing a wicket.Poulton opened with Shelley Nitschke (44) and raced to 104 not out in the reply, striking three sixes and nine fours in her 116-ball personal best. Australia’s innings lasted only 32.3 overs as the pair dominated the attack.Perry, the opening bowler, took a couple of early wickets and helped finish off the first innings as she collected 5 for 31. The collection was the best of her short career and also included 12 wides in 9.3 overs. Rene Farrell and Nitschke were effective in giving away less than three an over while Sarah Andrews removed the top scorers Katey Martin (25) and Amy Satterthwaite (22).Australia have been too strong in the opening four ODIs but New Zealand have a chance to strike in the final one-dayer on Thursday, which is followed by three Twenty20s in Hobart. The results won’t affect the direction of the trophy as Australia entered the series in possession of the prize and only needed to draw to hold on to it.